The 20th International Sedimentological Congress (ISC) will be held from 13-17 August 2018 in Quebec City, Canada.

Background

ISCs are sponsored by the IAS (International Association of Sedimentologists) every four years. Following previous gatherings in four different continents (Africa, Asia, South America and Europe), the congress comes back to Canada 36 years after Hamilton in 1982. For the first time, the congress will also be sponsored by the sister organization SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology).

The five day-long event offers oral and poster presentations in themed sessions and symposiums, mid-conference one-day field trips and short courses. Moreover, a series of pre- and post-meeting field trips will be organized in several places of Canada and the USA.

Mailing list subscription

You are invited to subscribe to the ISC2018 newsletter to receive important notifications such as the call for papers or the start of the registration period at the following address: http://www.isc2018.org

PAGES-related sessions

This session invites contributions on the transformation of sediment systems during the Anthropocene and on the general topics related to the analysis of anthropogenic signatures in the sediment records. More specifically, the theme aims to attract studies contributing to the description of the timing, amplitude and spatial extend of the human impacts on the environment and how they may compromise ecosystems. We welcome contributions that discuss the impacts of changes in land cover/uses, hydrological pathways, dam settlements, and use well-established or innovative proxies of human impacts such as DNA. Large-scale syntheses are also warmly welcome.

More than 100 years ago, the Swedish geoscientist de Geer proposed the concept of annually laminated sediments (i.e. varves) for proglacial deposits. Today varved sediments are known on Earth in multitudinous locations and can date from the current century back to the Precambrian. Under certain favorable conditions, varves can occur in diverse lacustrine and marine environmental settings. Varves provide precise incremental time control in calendar years and can thus offer time-series of biological, stable and radiogenic isotopic, magnetic, geochemical and sedimentological parameters. Moreover, they can archive solar variability and events like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and flooding. Careful analyses of varve sequences can yield climate reconstructions linked to hydroclimatic conditions, precipitation, temperature, and evaluate human impacts like soil erosion, pollution and eutrophication for past decades and millennia. Altogether, varves can increase our understanding of climatic and environmental impacts on natural and human-influenced systems in the past, present and future. Varves can document frequency and rates of change for environmentally relevant processes. They can enhance our understanding of sedimentary processes when applied together with sediment trapping and instrumental monitoring of local climatic conditions and physical parameters in the water column and in catchment areas. The latter strategy is useful for calibration of sedimentary parameters and to enhance the validity of proxy-based reconstructions.

This session appeals to a multidisciplinary audience of sedimentologists, paleolimnologists and limnogeologists studying varves with high temporal resolution at all time scales and from many environments. We welcome reconstructions related to climatic conditions, runoff, flooding, catchment erosion, sediment transfer, solar forcing, as well as other suitable topics like environmental monitoring. Moreover, this session invites reports about latest developments in the interpretation of varved sediment records, as well as improvements of geochronological methods and documentation of new analytical techniques. We welcome varve-based reconstructions related to climatic conditions, runoff, flooding, catchment erosion, sediment transfer, solar forcing, as well as environmental monitoring.